Lost Secrets of the Rig Veda Recovered - Full Text

[Originally published in Bhavan's Journal, Vol. 64, No. 15, 15 March 2018.]

IN THE YEAR 2016, the vesica piscis revealed itself to be a central key by which the encrypted language of the Vedic Rishis can be decrypted and better understood. Details of how this key came to light and all that it illuminates are found in my book Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom (2018). This key was born through Sri Aurobindo’s yogic lineage and it contributes to his yogic adesh or mission to uplift the Sanatana Dharma underlying India’s ancient spiritual traditions and lore. Circa 1910-14, Sri Aurobindo wrote:

I believe [the] Veda to be the foundation of the Sanatan Dharma; I believe it to be the concealed divinity within Hinduism, — but a veil has to be drawn aside, a curtain has to be lifted. I believe it to be knowable and discoverable. I believe the future of India and the world to depend on its discovery and on its application, not to the renunciation of life, but to life in the world and among men. 

…Religious movements and revolutions have come and gone or left their mark but after all and through all the Veda remains to us our Rock of the Ages, our eternal foundation…. Yet for some two thousand years at least no Indian has really understood the Vedas. [India’s Rebirth, pp. 256-57, 265-66]

His mission to draw aside the veil obscuring the Vedas led him to write a series of articles for the philosophical review Arya (1914-1917), which were eventually published together as the book The Secret of the Veda. Whereas Sri Aurobindo does illuminate the profound spiritual sense and sublime cohesiveness of the Rig Veda, he also admitted in The Secret of the Veda that much more remained to be learned or recovered. In the following passages he laid out the challenges of deciphering the symbolic language of the Rishis.

'More we cannot at present attempt; for the Vedic symbolism as worked out in the hymns is too complex in its details, too numerous in its standpoints, presents too many obscurities and difficulties to the interpreter in its shades and side allusions and above all has been too much obscured by ages of oblivion and misunderstanding to be adequately dealt with in a single work. We can only at present seek out the leading clues and lay as securely as may be the right foundations.' [Ibid., pp. 246-47] 

'Once we have the key to the meaning of the Cows, the Sun, the Honey-Wine, all the circumstances of the Angiras legend and the action of the Fathers, which are such an incongruous patchwork in the ritualistic or naturalistic and so hopelessly impossible in the historical or Arya-Dravidian interpretation of the hymns, become on the contrary perfectly clear and connected and each throws light on the other. We understand each hymn in its entirety and in relation to other hymns; each isolated line, each passage, each scattered reference in the Vedas falls inevitably and harmoniously into a common whole.' [Ibid., p. 384]

As illuminated by author Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (1938-2016), this ‘common whole’ in which each character, figure and symbol of the Rig Veda harmoniously falls in place is the Rishis’ twelve month yajna or sacrificial year, known throughout most of the world as the Zodiac. The establishment of this underlying context of the Vedas paved the way for the realization of how the sacred geometry of the radius and its eternal companion, the vesica piscis, is embedded into the language and symbols of the Rishis in myriad ways. These sacred geometric symbols are woven together in each line of the Vedas, seamlessly forming the tapestry of the text. In essence, the Rishis hid the geometric core or heart of their language in the sheer diversity they employed to shelter and carry the Sanatana Dharma safely through the perils of mankind’s fragmented egoic-mental consciousness. Another way of putting this is that the Rishis hid their gnosis of the ONE (the Divine Singularity) in the MANY names or forms they used to describe and convey it. 

One of the principal names of the radius in the Rig Veda is the divine hero-son Agni, who is described as the divine flame, ray, or hidden One of the twelve month sacrifice. Agni is said to be hidden in and born forth from the waters. In Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom, it becomes apparent that these waters are the symbolic ‘waters’ of the vesica piscis. It also becomes apparent that the Rishis saw and depicted the multiple vesicae piscium of the Zodiac as heavenly waters, springs, streams or rivers. In the Rig Veda, the victory of the divine heroes culminates in the discovery and release of seven sacred rivers. 

In the context of the Rishis’ sacred year (a.k.a., the Zodiac), the seventh ‘river’ (i.e., the seventh vesica piscis) arcs from the 7th sign of Libra (Tula) to the 11th sign Aquarius (Kumbha). Aquarius is specifically associated in zodiacal lore, with the pouring out of heavenly waters of universal truth upon the world, though for thousands of years the connection between this zodiacal lore and its ancient Vedic origin has been lost.

‘[Indra] measured out the air's wide middle region…. [He] slew the Dragon, freed the Seven Rivers…. [He] set free the Seven great Floods to flow….’ [Rig Veda 2.12 tr. R.T.H. Griffith]

Indra, in this context is the radius (i.e. the water bearer) who both measures out and pours out the waters or rivers of the vesica piscis. With these geometric keys, it became entirely apparent that the apocalyptic release of the seven bowls or vials of St. John’s Revelation, is a retelling or reimagining of the release of the Vedic rivers. The seventh river and seventh bowl (or vial) are equally symbols of the seventh vesica piscis of the Zodiac.

‘The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!"’  [Revelation 16:17, NIV]

In Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom, I have laid out the research backing up these discoveries (and many related discoveries) and the yogic path by which they were made. The vesica piscis’s role in the Rig Veda has been a long-kept or long-forgotten secret of the Vedic Rishis. It is simultaneously the mother, the womb, the concealing water, the robe, mantle and covering veil of the Vedic hero who is a symbol of the radius of the circle. It is the weapon and great step of Vishnu who is known throughout Indian lore as the Preserver of Sanatana Dharma. The vesica piscis is also the geometric basis of Vishnu’s first and second avatars, Matsya (the Fish) and Kurma (the Turtle). The connection between Vishnu’s fish form and the fish form of the vesica piscis is visually self-evident (below left). Vishnu’s turtle form builds upon the basis of this ‘fish’.  His turtle legs are formed via four overlapping vesicae piscium (below right), drawn out from the four cardinal points of the Earth’s year, marking out the four Preservation signs of the Zodiac – Taurus (Vrishaba), Leo (Simha), Scorpio (Vrishchika) and Aquarius (Kumbha). 

© Lori Tompkins, Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom, p. 123

Now that this great secret (maha rahasya) is known, the Rig Veda can (and must) be approached with entirely new eyes and with the appropriate lantern of gnosis by which what has been hidden for multiple millennia can now be seen. With this key, it becomes glaringly apparent that the vast majority of all the world’s ancient symbols and lore ‒ including the symbols and lore of the Zodiac ‒ have been chronically misunderstood due to being separated from their true Vedic context.

Notably, the discovery of this great secret came 99 years after Sri Aurobindo finished his ‘Secret of the Veda’ series for Arya, and in conjunction with his 144th birth anniversary in 2016. The key of the vesica piscis came forth entirely as an extension and consequence of his yogic tapasya. Its recovery marks the end of thousands of years of ignorance regarding the basic structure and context of the Rig Veda, unsealing the doors of its many treasures.

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Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom is available on Amazon and Flipcart.